For those born in the 60's or earlier

[justamom]

The best I can recall was gas wars between 19-22 cents a gallon.
Yes, a dollar a week allowance meant a movie (. 50) a coke, and popcorn and a bit of change left over. I went to a little store that sold 45s from juke boxes for 49 cents. I still have some AND the little plastic thingy that went in the center. When they broke, I'd stick my finger in the center and try to even it up as it went round and round. (We ALL stuck money in a musical beer stine to save up for a record player.)First album-Berl Ives.

I had Chatty Cathy, Tiny Tears and Terry Lee with her trunk.
Pickup Stix, marbles, and rainy afternoons of Crazy Eight, Slap Jack or reading Nancy Drew.

I wore my hair in TIGHT braids and couldn't eat breakfast till after Communion. No air-conditioning in the classrooms and almost falling asleep to the hum of the fans. Bomb drills.

Nuns who used a ruler on your hands and memorization, memorization, memorization! One kid in my class had flunked 3 years up to 5th grade.

Living in the country-
Making mud pies and getting REALLY dirty. We had to be creative because we had ONE CHANNEL that came in clear and shut down after the news. We didn't have a dial on our phone, just a red bar-the operator would connect us...and of course party lines.
Being chased by a bunch of CHICKENS and butted by a goat!
Introduced to propagation by a stallion with the biggest *thing* I had ever seen in my LIFE!

[mmcat]

wow jam...
as always talking to me.

[honeychile]

One thing I remembered recently was, when I was a kid, we spent most of our weekends in the country. We would drop egg cartons and money off at a Mennonite family, and as we were leaving on Sunday, the eggs would be in the shade, ready to go.

I was about to throw out an egg carton the other day, and suddenly thought, "I have to save that for the Sunday eggs!"

I miss those days!!

[ISUKappa]

So I was born way later than the 60s but I'm having a blast reading all your memories! I can relate to some, I think, because I grew up in a small Iowan farming community. I remember when we could just dial 6-#### (no city prefix, no area code) to get anyone in town and the Co-op had ice cold glass bottles of soda for $.25. I love hearing all the stories from my dad about what it was like there when he was growing up.

Reminisce away!

[xo_kathy]

Hey, when I was a kid (the 80's) my cousin lived in a small town in MI, and if you wanted to call within the town you only had to dial 7-XXXX. I thought that was the coolest thing!

Originally posted by ISUKappa
So I was born way later than the 60s but I'm having a blast reading all your memories! I can relate to some, I think, because I grew up in a small Iowan farming community.

I was about to post the same thing. I grew up in a very small (Wisconsin) town that never quite left the 1940s. Talk about a culture shock when I moved away to college.

I worked in a gas station where you didn't pay for your gas each time, we just wrote your name down on a sheet and asked you for the total at the end of the month. And no woman pumped her own gas!

In high school we had single-sex gym... the boys had shop, and the girls had home-ec.

We also had the shortened numbers! Sometime in late grade school we switched to having to dial all 7 numbers... before that my phone number was 7-0126... but most of my friends had 6-xxxx numbers because they lived in town and I lived in the country.

Milk delivery came every Saturday!

[NutBrnHair]

Originally posted by Ginger
And no woman pumped her own gas!

No one used to pump their own gas! LOL Remember "high test" gas? Put a tiger in your tank?

[Lady Pi Phi]

slight hijack.

I wish I could have a 5 digit phone number. I wish I could have a 7 digit number. There are so many people in the greater Toronto area now that you have to dial the area code before every number even if you're calling you're next door neighbour.
There are 3 area codes in the GTA, 416, 905, and 647. So now everyone has a 10 digit number.

Originally posted by NutBrnHair
No one used to pump their own gas! LOL Remember "high test" gas? Put a tiger in your tank?

Well, I mean, our station was full service, but if one of the attendants were busy helping other cars, a lot of men would just start their own. A woman, however, would wait patiently in her car. Most of the attendants we had were ancient old men (sweetest things you'll ever meet) and the sight of a woman starting her own gas might be the end of them!

[rainbowbrightCS]

Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
slight hijack.

I wish I could have a 5 digit phone number. I wish I could have a 7 digit number. There are so many people in the greater Toronto area now that you have to dial the area code before every number even if you're calling you're next door neighbour.
There are 3 area codes in the GTA, 416, 905, and 647. So now everyone has a 10 digit number.

Same here is the greater Atlanta area. There is 770 404 and 678


In the Greater Pheonix area was 602 480 623. but luckily if you lived in 602 and were dialing some one is 602 you only had to dial the other 7 #'s

In Ga you have to dial all 10.


Christia

[Rudey]

When did STDs, gangs, and school violence start to factor in?

-Rudey
--And was DeltAlum in the ham radio club?

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by Rudey
When did STDs, gangs, and school violence start to factor in?

Shee-it, boss, I dunno... I remember a shooting at my high school during my senior year - and that was considered extremely rare back then; the last time there was a gun situation at school was in 1972.

Nowadays, schools are more like prison camps... except without barbed wire, death strips and guard towers! They keep cutting back the extracurricular activity and athletics budget, ya might as well convert the PE fields into mine fields as well!

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by rainbowbrightCS
Same here is the greater Atlanta area. There is 770 404 and 678


In the Greater Pheonix area was 602 480 623. but luckily if you lived in 602 and were dialing some one is 602 you only had to dial the other 7 #'s

In Ga you have to dial all 10.

Ditto here in the DFW area. Originally it was 214 for Dallas and 817 for Fort Worth. When a new area code was assigned to Dallas, people raised a big stink over whether it would be an 'overlay' (creating the area code within the existing code) or physically defining one. The latter prevailed; area code 972 begins roughly around the I-635 perimeter outward towards the suburbs. A third area code, 469 was overlaid over both of them a couple of years ago.

I think Fort Worth finally had another area code added to it, but don't know what it is.

[Taualumna]

Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
slight hijack.

I wish I could have a 5 digit phone number. I wish I could have a 7 digit number. There are so many people in the greater Toronto area now that you have to dial the area code before every number even if you're calling you're next door neighbour.
There are 3 area codes in the GTA, 416, 905, and 647. So now everyone has a 10 digit number.

The 905s have a cell phone area code too. It's 2-something-something, I think.

Also, some schools still have single sex gym (at least in the mid 90s. My friend went to a public high school in North York (1994-1998), and her gym class was all girls)

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by Rudey
When did STDs, gangs, and school violence start to factor in?

-Rudey
--And was DeltAlum in the ham radio club?

Funny you should ask. No.

But I was the president of the Radio (broadcasting) Club and did the morning announcements on the PA system as well as being the announcer for the Marching Band. Also announced for the Public Schools FM station and hosted a Junior Achievement radio program on a local commercial station. Worked for the local rock station answering the phones after school during "Beatlemania."

There is a Bob Greene book called "Be True to Your School" which talks specifically about the stations I worked for and some of the personalities I worked with. Greene graduated from a high school about ten miles from mine the same year. The book is a expansion of a diary he kept the second half of his junior and first half of his senior year. I don't know that I ever met him, but was undoubtedly at some of the street and "open house" parties he mentions. And I later directed the Ohio State Basketball games with the TV announcer he talks about.

STDs were with us back then, but they were treatable and not as likely to kill you.

One high school I attended was about 50/50 white and black and there was some racial tension, but we generally got along. I do remember a knifing at a football game, and "rumbles" (gang fights) did happen -- but were probably more the stuff of legend than reality in many cases.

And, of course, thanks to the Beach Boys, every teenager wanted to live on the California Beaches.

Let's hear it for White Levis!

(we've had 10 number local dialing here in Denver for several years.)